Three Dimensional Shear Stress Distribution around Small Atherosclerotic Plaques with Steady and Unsteady Flow

Abstract

Results of a numerical model study of the flow field and the wall shear stress distribution patterns in the vicinity of early atherosclerotic plaques were examined using a computational fluid mechanics method. It was shown from the computation that unsteadiness significantly affected the wall shear stress distribution in the neighborhood of minimal deformations of the arterial wall. It was also shown that upstream condition did not severely influence the downstream flow structure. In other words, local flow structure was mainly determined by the local geometry. Complexity of flow field invoked by the irregularity of vascular walls was stressed and the necessity of fluid mechanical studies of the blood flow under three dimensional unsteady flow conditions was pointed out. The computational fluid dynamical method incorporating supercomputers was shown to be very useful to understand the fine structure of those flow fields.